Christian Geist
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and organist
Pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
, who lived and worked mainly in Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
.
Biography
He was born in GüstrowGüstrow
Güstrow is a town in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany the capital of the district of Güstrow. It has a population of 30,500 and is the seventh largest town in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Since 2006 Güstrow has the official suffix Barlachstadt.-Geography:The town of Güstrow is located...
, where his father, Joachim Geist, was cantor
Cantor (church)
A cantor is the chief singer employed in a church with responsibilities for the ecclesiastical choir; also called the precentor....
at the cathedral school. 1665–1666 and 1668–1669 he was a boy member of the court orchestra conducted by Daniel Danielis
Daniel Danielis
Daniel Danielis was a Belgian composer. He studied at Maastricht and was organist at Saint Lambert's Church. Between 1661 and 1681 he served as Kapellmeister at the court of Mecklenburg-Güstrow. In 1684 he became maître de musique at Vannes Cathedral.-Recordings:* Danielis Caeleste convivium...
(1635-1696) of Duke Gustav Adolph of Mecklenburg-Güstrow. He was a bass singer at the Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
court music ensemble in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
in 1669 and in June 1670 moved to the Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
court orchestra under Gustaf Düben
Gustaf Düben
Gustaf Düben was a Swedish organist and composer.Düben was born and died in Stockholm. In 1663, he succeeded his father, the German-born Andreas Düben as both hovkapellmästare, director of the Royal Swedish Court Orchestra, and organist of the German St Gertrud Church in Stockholm.Father of...
the elder (c. 1628-1690), a position he held until June 1679, having applied unsuccessfully for the position of choirmaster of St. John's in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
in 1674. He became organist of the German church in Göteborg, and in November 1684 moved to Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, where he succeeded J.M. Radeck as organist of the Helligaandskirke, a post he held to his death, and also the Trinitatis Kirke, after marrying his widow
Widow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...
Magdalena Sibylla in May 1685 (a practice by no means rare). He succeeded Johann Lorentz as organist of the Church of Holmen
Church of Holmen
The Church of Holmen is a church in central Copenhagen in Denmark, on the street called Holmens Kanal. First built as an anchor forge in 1563, it was converted into a naval church by Christian IV. It is famous for having hosted the wedding between Margrethe II of Denmark, current queen of Denmark,...
in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
in 1689. He died, with his third wife and all their children, of the bubonic plague
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
.
Music
Sixty of his vocal works have survived, all but two of a sacredSacred
Holiness, or sanctity, is in general the state of being holy or sacred...
nature, with Latin texts; they were probably composed during his time in Stockholm. Most are intended for court performance, and one third for use in church services, but he also wrote larger works for royal ceremonies; Quis hostis in coelis and Domine in virtute were written for Charles XI's accession to the throne
House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken
The House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, a branch of the Wittelsbach dynasty, was the Royal House of Sweden from 1654 to 1720.By this point it had splintered into several different houses...
in 1672.
His vocal works are related in form and style to the contemporary Italian concerted motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
; indeed, he called them 'motetto'. They are generally in sections which alternate in texture and scoring, and include arioso
Arioso
In classical music, arioso is a style of solo opera singing between recitative and aria. Literally, arioso means airy. The term arose in the 16th century along with the aforementioned styles and monody. It is commonly confused with recitativo accompagnato....
s or aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
s for solo voice. The simple counterpoint and expressive harmonic and melodic nature of these works is typically Italian, while his extravagant use of the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and viol
Viol
The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...
is rooted in the German tradition. His music is somewhat similar to that of Peranda Albrici and Vincenzo Albrici
Vincenzo Albrici
Vincenzo Albrici was an Italian composer.Vincenzo was born as the son of singer who settled from Marche in Rome. In 1641 he became a student on Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum under Giacomo Carissimi. In 1647 he was paid as an organist in the Santa Maria in Vallicella...
, Kaspar Förster
Kaspar Förster
Kaspar Förster was a German singer and composer.Förster studied music under his father Kaspar and then under Marco Scacchi in Warsaw...
, and Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services...
. The manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s of his compositions reside in the library of the University of Uppsala, and some have been published as C. Geist: 15 Ausgewählte Kirchenkonzerte, edited by B. Lundgren, in Das Erbe deutscher Musik, 1st series, XLVIII (1960).
Six vocal works on German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
texts were written during his time as organist of the German church in Göteborg; they are typical of German Protestant works; chorale
Chorale
A chorale was originally a hymn sung by a Christian congregation. In certain modern usage, this term may also include classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....
settings, sacred arias, and a concerto with aria.
Three organ
Pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
works of doubtful authorship have been published as Tre koralförspel, ed. Lundgren (Stockholm, 1943); these are chorale preludes on Allein Gott in der Hoh sei Ehr (all glory be to God on high); Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir
Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir
Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir , BWV 38, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach composed the chorale cantata in Leipzig in 1724 in his second annual cycle for the twenty-first Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 19 October 1724...
(from deep affliction I cry out to you), using the melody by Wolfgang Dachstein rather than the more well-known one by Martin Luther
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
, and Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ
Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ
Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ is a Lutheran chorale of 1524, with words written by Martin Luther. For centuries the chorale has been the prominent hymn for Christmas Day in German speaking Lutheranism, but has also been used in different translations internationally...
(Praise to you, Jesus Christ). These works fall into the tradition of the North German school of organ music.
Further reading
- Johann MatthesonJohann MatthesonJohann Mattheson was a German composer, writer, lexicographer, diplomat and music theorist.Mattheson was born and died in Hamburg. He was a close friend of George Frideric Handel, although he nearly killed him in a sudden quarrel, during a performance of Mattheson's opera Cleopatra in 1704...
: Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte (Hamburg, 1740) - A. Pirro: Dietrich Buxtehude (Paris, 1913)
- G. Webber: North German Church Music in the Age of Buxtehude (Oxford, 1996)
- L. Berglund: Studier i Christian Geists vokalmusik [Studies in the Vocal Works of Christian Geist] (dissertation, University of Uppsala 2002)
Sources
- Kerala J. Snyder/Lars Berglund: 'Geist, Christian', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 2007-06-07), http://www.grovemusic.com/
- Friedhelm Flamme: notes to recording Organ Works of the North German Baroque III, cpo recordsClassic Produktion OsnabrückClassic Produktion Osnabrück is a record label founded in 1986 by Georg Ortmann and several others. Its declared mission is to fill niches in the recorded classical repertory, with an emphasis on romantic, late romantic and 20th-century music...
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